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        Arimaa >> Game Analysis >> thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 & 179
        
(Message started by: thomastanck on Apr 13^th, 2011, 4:01am)

Title: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 & 179
Post by thomastanck on Apr 13^th, 2011, 4:01am

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=179570

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=179433

I am trying to get up the bot ladder and it'll be very nice to tell me what moves I made wrongly and what I should have done. I have little idea what strategy I should use, to defend or to attack. I don't even how to attack or defend actually...

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by Nevermind on Apr 13^th, 2011, 8:07am

Hey Thomas!

Looking at the first game, a few general points I would make:

1. Whenever possible, try not to let the opponent capture your pieces. Unlike in chess, there are very few situations with viable sacrifices to be made in arimaa, because things like tempo and positional advantage cannot usually be gained enough to compensate for losing pieces. Conversely, whenever you can force a capture of the opponent's piece without losing one of your own, it is usually the correct thing to do.

2. Even though the object of the game is to goal with a rabbit, this is usually extremely hard if not impossible to do until a few captures have been made. There simply isn't any room for the rabbit to go through! Therefore, your initial aim in most games should be to capture the opponents pieces, and only attempt to bring rabbits forward to goal later. Remember, rabbits cannot move backwards, so if you commit them forwards too early, they might get captured by the opponent! Similarly if your opponent advances rabbits it means that you should consider whether you can target them for capture.

3. As far as attacking and defending goes, I would recommend that a beginner should focus on playing what is called a "home game", meaning that the focus is to use your elephant to drag and flip the opponents pieces into your 2 home traps, while keeping your own pieces safe. Attacking the opponents traps with your pieces is very possible, but it is more difficult to execute correctly. A good defensive principle is to always have at least two defending pieces around your home traps, so that nothing can be captured there.

A good place to start with general strategic principles is the arimaa wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Arimaa Take note however, that some of the information is a bit outdated ;]

I hope that you got something out of that. You will be able to beat that particular bot in no time at all. Happy learning!

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by thomastanck on Apr 13^th, 2011, 9:49am

Thanks for your reply! That is something I must remember. I thought that because Arimaa had so many moves and other things, it was ok to lose some pieces. I will try to gain more pieces against it the next time I play. :D

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by thomastanck on Apr 13^th, 2011, 10:56am

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=179592

AAAGH computer closed and I lost a page of my own crappy but better than nothing analysis! What I can remember:

4g was bad
6g may or may not be bad, should have put camel behind and next to dogs, and moved elephant to center
From the beginning I should have already kept my pieces back, makes it harder for enemy elephant to take my pieces.

Time to try again.

Can't try again because I fed the bot so much rating its out of my playable bots list...

Edit again: Ok this is the end of discussion. I lost to a bot below me, I must be weaker than the bot ladder says. I am restarting from shallow blue.

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 14^th, 2011, 10:54pm

on 04/13/11 at 10:56:52, thomastanck wrote:

I lost to a bot below me, I must be weaker than the bot ladder says. I am restarting from shallow blue.

I personally found it helpful to move up the bot ladder slowly. I figured that if I wasn't beating a bot 75% of the time, it still had something to teach me. There's nothing wrong with beating each bot once and moving on for maximal challenge, but it suited my personality more to try to consolidate what I was learning.

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by ginrunner on Apr 15^th, 2011, 12:56am

whereas I am the complete opposite. I play the next bot in the ladder until I beat it which usually means losing 10-20-30 times in a row and destroying my rating. I learn much more from a loss than a win and so I take the route that is less appealing.

Title: Re: thomastanck VS bot_Loc2007P2 Game 179570 &
Post by thomastanck on Apr 15^th, 2011, 2:06am

For now, I play against a weak bot until I think I can easily beat it without making some sort of mistake. Then I move upward and that wouldn't be a very big jump then. I'll be able to beat that but won't be able to play what I believe I should be able to play.